Giraffe
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88 free Giraffe trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Giraffe trivia questions with answers. Giraffe trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Giraffes trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01In one study, which animals spent less time scanning for predators when giraffes stood nearby?
Zebras
Zebras: researchers found they eavesdrop on giraffes, whose height lets them spot danger from afar, and relax their own watch when the tall lookouts are around.
Q 02How many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have in its neck?
7
7, the same as a human: each neck bone is simply stretched to about 25 cm, so the giraffe gained its reach without a single extra vertebra.
Q 03The leaves of which African tree are a giraffe's favourite food?
Acacia
Acacia: giraffes work their tongues between its thorns to strip the leaves, though botanists now file most African acacias under the names Vachellia and Senegalia.
Q 04What are the horn-like structures on a giraffe's head called?
Ossicones
Ossicones are cartilage that hardens to bone under skin and fur; a calf's lie flat at birth, sparing its mother, and stand upright within days.
Q 05Where does a mother giraffe usually leave her newborn calf while she feeds during its first days?
Lying hidden in cover
Lying hidden in cover: the calf stays down for much of its first weeks, relying on camouflage, while its mother feeds close by and comes back to nurse it.
Q 06What does a bull giraffe taste to check whether a cow is ready to mate?
Her urine
Her urine: the bull samples it and curls back his upper lip, the flehmen response, which carries the scent to a special organ that tells him whether she is in oestrus.
Q 07Which part of a giraffe weighs about 11 kg and measures some 60 cm long?
Its heart
Its heart: the muscle has to lift blood some two metres to the head, so the wall of its main pumping chamber grows far thicker than in other mammals.
Q 08For brief spells of deep sleep, a giraffe lies down and rests its head where?
On its own rump
On its own rump: the neck curls back in a loop for bursts of deep sleep lasting only minutes, because a folded-up giraffe is slow to rise if a predator appears.
Q 09Giraffes usually inhabit which two habitat types?
Savannahs and woodlands
Savannahs and woodlands: giraffes feed from branches, so they go where the trees are and range wherever woody plants dot open country.
Q 10How does a giraffe usually reach water on the ground to drink?
Spreads its front legs apart
Spreads its front legs apart: the awkward stance leaves a drinking giraffe slow to flee, so herds take turns, some drinking while others keep watch.
Q 11Like a human fingerprint, which feature is unique to every individual giraffe?
Their coat pattern
Their coat pattern is fixed for life, so researchers identify thousands of wild giraffes from photographs alone, with no need to catch or tag them.
Q 12Which other living mammal is considered the closest relative to the giraffe?
Okapi
Okapi: the two are the only living members of the giraffe family, though the okapi is horse-sized, striped on the legs and has a neck of ordinary length.
Q 13The common English name "giraffe" has its earliest known origins in what language?
Arabic
Arabic: the word reached English through Italian and French from the Arabic zarafa, which Arabic itself probably borrowed from an African language.
Q 21What often happens to the blotches of a male giraffe's coat as he grows older?
They darken
They darken: in many bulls the blotches turn from brown towards black between about seven and ten years old, though nobody yet knows why, and not every giraffe does it.
Q 22Which author wrote The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, about a window-cleaning giraffe?
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl wrote it in 1985 with illustrator Quentin Blake: the giraffe's stretchy neck lets the Ladderless Window-Cleaning Company reach any floor without a ladder.
Q 23When a predator approaches, what is an adult giraffe's main means of defence?
Delivering powerful kicks
Q 14On leaving their mothers, young bull giraffes usually join what kind of group?
An all-male bachelor herd
An all-male bachelor herd: the young bulls spar with one another there for years, while their sisters tend to stay close to the mother's herd.
Q 15A newborn giraffe calf already stands about as high as which of these?
A tall man
A tall man: at around 1.8 metres on its first day, the calf can reach its mother's udder and nurse as soon as it finds its feet.
Q 16Compared with other hoofed mammals, giraffe eyes are larger with a greater surface area of which structure?
Retina
Retina: the big light-catching surface gives giraffes sharp long-range sight, so when one stares at danger a kilometre off, the rest of the group turns to look too.
Q 17Geneticists say the four giraffe species differ about as much as a polar bear does from which animal?
A brown bear
A brown bear: DNA studies split what was long treated as a single species into four, each with its own region of Africa.
Q 18A giraffe's long tongue is dark at the tip, a colour thought to protect it from what?
Sunburn
Sunburn: the tongue spends hours a day stretched out in full sun, and the part that stays inside the mouth is pink, though the idea is still debated.
Q 19Which predator is the main threat to a full-grown giraffe?
Lion
Lion: an adult's size and sharp eyesight deter most hunters, so lions are the main threat; calves are far more at risk, falling also to hyenas, leopards and wild dogs.
Q 20What makes a bull giraffe's head grow heavier and knobblier throughout his life?
Layers of extra bone
Layers of extra bone build up on the skull as bulls age, turning the head into a heavier club that lands harder blows when rivals swing at each other.
Delivering powerful kicks, any one of which can be lethal, keeps adults mostly safe; a mother stands over her calf and kicks at anything that comes near.
Q 24In what position does a female giraffe typically give birth?
Standing up
Standing up: the calf arrives forefeet and head first and drops about two metres to the ground, a fall that snaps the cord and jolts it into its first breath.
Q 25Besides camouflage, what second job are a giraffe's dark blotches believed to do?
Regulating body temperature
Regulating body temperature: each blotch sits over a dense web of blood vessels, so thermal cameras show the patches shedding heat like radiators.
Q 26How do bull giraffes usually feed differently from cows?
They browse higher up
They browse higher up: bulls stretch to full height while cows feed lower and are choosier, picking a richer diet with less fibre.
Q 27Giraffes are considered the largest of what group of mammals?
Ruminants
Ruminants: giraffes are the largest of the cud-chewers, and a swallowed ball of leaves can be seen travelling back up the long neck for a second chewing.
Q 28When a giraffe lowers its head, what structure in the upper neck prevents excess blood flow to the brain?
A rete mirabile
A rete mirabile, a net of fine vessels in the upper neck, absorbs the rush of blood; when the head comes back up the vessels constrict and push blood to the brain so the animal does not faint.
Q 29Ancient Greeks and Romans named the giraffe after which two animals?
Camel and leopard
Camel and leopard: to them it looked like a camel wearing a leopard's spots, so English long called the giraffe a camelopard, a word that lives on in its scientific name.
Q 30Why do young bull giraffes rarely get to mate before about the age of seven?
Older bulls outrank them
Older bulls outrank them: a male is fertile by about four, but dominant bulls keep rivals away from a receptive cow, so the young must wait their turn.